IN THE shadow of Mount Olympus the toga-clad worshippers sway to the
beating of a drum as the bearded man leading the ceremony throws a pinch of
grain into a torch, then circles his hand above the flames.

While the group, dressed in yellow, red and blue robes, may appear to be
taking part in some bewildering historical re-enactment, they are members a
growing pagan movement dedicated to resurrecting the religion and way of
life of ancient Greece.

The pagans have gathered in a meadow near the sacred mountain where their
ancestors believed the gods lived and held court to perform a naming
ceremony for a nine-month-old boy, Nikoforos Xanthopoulos.

The bearded man officiating, Tryphon Olympios, 58, from Skliva in southern
Greece, was a philosophy professor at Stockholm University for 25 years.

“May he be worthy of being Greek” Olympios calls out.

“Worthy,” the crowd roars in response.

Leaders of the “return of the Hellenes” movement say they have 2,000
“hard-core” practising followers, about 5,000 who travel to Mount Olympus,
100km southwest of the city of Thessaloniki in northern Greece, for the
annual celebration, and 100,000 “sympathisers” who support their ideas.

The colourful Hellenes are viewed with interest by many in Greek society
but largely ridiculed by the media. Yet their unsuccessful efforts to be
recognised as an “official” Greek religion highlight Greece’s intolerance
of the expression of non-Christian religions.

Olympios – now his legal name – is one of the founders of the revival. He
first attracted national media attention when he publicly married his wife
in an ancient ceremony in 1987.

“We want to take the world view, concepts, ideas, religion and values of
the ancient Greeks, the founders of western civilisation, and adapt them to
today,” Olympios explained. “The Greek way is to establish a scientific
society. Christianity today is hostile to science.”

The Hellenes have dozens of websites and books on ancient history, culture
and ideas. Ancient Greek language courses and unofficial associations are
popping up throughout the country. They also hold ancient ceremonies for
weddings and funerals, although only the rites of Greek Orthodox Christian
clergy are legally recognised.

“We think of Carl Sagan as a Greek, and all the people in the world who
love knowledge and don’t hate others,” said Giannis Psomiadis, 48, a
medical doctor at the naming ceremony. “We wouldn’t have Socrates or Plato
without polytheism.”

One of the group’s followers is Cornelia Buschbeck. The 32-year-old from
Chemnitz, in the former East Germany, was wearing a white T-shirt showing a
picture of a bust of Zeus.

She started teaching herself Greek at 15, and later obtained university
degrees in Greek and archeology. She moved to Thessaloniki eight years ago.

“It’s a religion from here,” said Buschbeck, placing a hand on her heart,
“rather than here,” pointing to her head.

Buschbeck explained that Hellenes do not worship the pantheon of 12 gods as
deities. Rather, each god represents a natural phenomena or human value.

The movement appeals to many different tastes: for some it provides an
intellectually satisfying philosophy, for others an antidote to the Greek
Church’s political power, New Age reverence for the ancient or something
exotic for the curiosity-seeker.

However, the movement has also attracted a small number of more sinister
followers; right-wing nationalists who believe their anti-Semitic views are
reflected in its rejection of the Judeo-Christian religion.

Meanwhile, the Hellenes are viewed with disdain by the Greek Orthodox Church.

About 200 yards from the meadow where the naming ceremony was being held, a
small crowd filed out of a stone Christian church, following a baptism.
When the priest was asked for comment, he responded with hostility: “I have
only one word to say about them: idolaters.”

The Hellenes still mourn the end of their civilisation in the 4th Century
AD, when Christians representing the new official religion of the Roman
Empire began destroying their temples, statues and libraries.

“The Greek Orthodox Christian Church is still at the scene of the crime,”
said Vlassis Rassias, a human resources manager at a bank, who writes books
about ancient Greek history. The 44-year-old is indignant that the Greek
Orthodox Church today builds new churches at every site where an ancient
temple is uncovered.

One group of Hellenes, led by Panaghiotis Marinis, from the Committee for
the Recognition of the Greek Religion Dodecatheon, applied two years ago
for the movement to be officially recognised. The Greek government has
still to make a decision on the application and, without official
recognition, the group cannot build temples, have an office, or hold public
ceremonies.

“We are the only religion in the world not allowed to visit our sacred
sites,” said Marinis. He intends to take his case to the European Court of
Human Rights in Strasbourg if the Greek government does not act.

According to the US State Department’s 2002 human rights report on Greece:
“Laws restrictive of freedom of speech remained in force, and some legal
restrictions and administrative obstacles on freedom of religion persisted.”

Making Greek society more tolerant will not be easy. According to official
figures, 98% of Greeks are Greek Orthodox Christians. And Hellenes report
occasional harassment. During one ceremony at a lake near Mount Olympus,
Buschbeck recalls, the local Greek Orthodox Christian Bishop and some monks
led a group of 100 people to the other side of the lake to oppose them. The
Bishop shouted at them through a megaphone, and played cloister music
through a PA system to drown out their ceremony.

“The Bishop said they would have to throw a cross in the lake to cleanse it
of us,” Buschbeck said. When the Hellenes complained to police, they were
told it would be better that they leave, rather than have a stand-off with
the Bishop.

At the Greek Ministry of National Education and Religious Affairs,
Konstantinos Kontogiannis, general director of the religion directorate,
claimed recognition of the movement was being considered “at the highest
levels”. But he added:

“‘Laws still prevent Pomaks living outside their traditional villages’”

Published Date: 07 September 2003

By MATTHEW BRUNWASSER IN THESSALONIKI

THEY were sent into exile and scattered to every corner of the world. For more than half a century the Macedonian Diaspora cast out of Greece during the country’s bloody civil war have been barred from returning to their homeland.

Now the army of elderly refugees has been granted a temporary homecoming, if not the return of the money and property seized during the savage conflict that pitted them against their fellow countrymen.

Greece is finally facing up to its history of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and beginning the process of extending full rights to its minorities, who faced decades of persecution and discrimination under successive oppressive regimes and right-wing dictatorships.

The move comes as the pro-European government of Prime Minister Costas Simitis pushes Greece gingerly toward a more diverse, tolerant, and some might say European and democratic society. Nevertheless, it will be a hard task to shake off the pervasive belief in the ethnic ‘purity’ of ‘true Greeks’.

Even the return of the Macedonian community is temporary. The concession, announced by the Greek deputy foreign minister Andreas Loverdos in July, only allows them to enter Greece between August 10 and October 30 and limits their stay to a maximum of 20 days.

For many the homecoming itself is a slap in the face. Macedonian political activists were refused at the border and there were rumours of a blacklist. Those whose passports contained the old Macedonian-language names of their villages were turned away and told to get new passports listing the new Greek names.

Only 300 of the 100,000 Macedonians banished from Greece have returned. One hundred and fifty were turned away and many more cancelled their travel plans when they heard about the border problems.

For those Macedonians who have managed to cross the border in recent weeks, there have been emotional reunions with family members, and visits to villages and former homes. For others, however, there has been only heartache. Former residents of the ethnic Macedonian village formerly known as D’mbeni discovered the Greek army had not only changed the name, but bulldozed all the buildings, including the graveyard, where their relatives and ancestors were buried.

During the Nazi occupation of Greece, more than 10,000 Macedonians, who were Greek citizens, became resistance fighters in the communist-controlled National Popular Liberation Army (ELAS). Following liberation, they found themselves embroiled in a civil war against the pro-royalist Greek Democratic National Army (EDES). In 1949 ELAS finally surrendered, bringing the war, which had lasted nearly five years, to an end.

Greece’s collective memory of the civil war remains keen; strong enough that this army of elderly immigrants is still considered a threat to the security of the Greek Republic. The returning Macedonians have also made Greece aware of another uncomfortable reality: not all Greeks speak Greek and are Greek Orthodox Christian.

Panayote Dimitras, spokesman for the Greek branch of Helsinki Monitor, a human rights group, said: “Greek society has been educated to believe that if you are not Greek-speaking and a Greek Orthodox Christian then you are not a good Greek or a real Greek. They have nothing to fear from these people. They might have come and said strong words against Greece. So what? We are a strong democracy. It was about time for these people to return.”

Pavlos Voskopulos, of the Rainbow political party of ethnic Macedonians in Greece, adds: “Anyone expressing a different ethnic, national or linguistic identity is often stigmatised in the public and in the media. They are accused of being anti-Greek.”

According to the US State Department’s 2002 Human Rights report on Greece: “Laws restrictive of freedom of speech remained in force, and some legal restrictions and administrative obstacles on freedom of religion persisted…”

According to researchers, minorities in Greece number between 5% and 10% of the population, or between 500,000 and one million people. These include not only ethnic Macedonians, but Gypsies, Turks, Romanian-speaking Vlachs, indigenous Albanians, and Pomaks: Muslims with Koranic names and traditions, who speak an archaic dialect of Bulgarian.

Officially, however, only a ‘Muslim minority’ is recognised, created by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne which ended war with Turkey. Because it makes no distinction between Turkish, Gypsy and Pomak Muslims, the Greek state has been able to manipulate the Muslims’ identities according to country’s political interest.

The restrictions on Pomaks’ movement, for example, continued until 1995. The Simitis government finally struck down Article 19 of the constitution in 1998, which allowed the state to revoke the citizenship of “non-ethnic Greeks” who travelled abroad without permission.

But there are still laws on the books which prevent Pomaks from living outside their traditional villages, although they are not enforced.

Voskopulos, of the Rainbow party, said: “We are talking about a united Europe, a European identity. Everyone knows how important it is to respect diversity. Today to discriminate against people at such a broad level is completely unacceptable.”

SCARS OF CIVIL WAR

THE Greek Civil War, which broke out in 1946, was fought between British and American-backed government forces and communist guerrillas.

The two main forces that had resisted the Nazi occupation – the communist-controlled National Liberation Front-National Popular Liberation Army (EAM-ELAS) and the Greek Democratic National Army (EDES) – came into conflict after EAM-ELAS set up a provisional government that rejected the Greek king Constantine (right) and his government-in-exile.

Ethnic Slav-speaking Macedonians, related to kin in socialist Yugoslavia to the north, fought for autonomy and aligned with the leftist insurgents. To deny the communists local support, more than 700,000 villagers were forcibly evacuated from mountains and dumped into miserable camps near towns.

In total, around 3,000 government executions were recorded during the conflict.

By the time the civil war ended in 1949, with the surrender of the communist guerrillas, some 100,000 people were dead and one million displaced.

Ethnic Macedonians were singled out for reprisals because of their support for the leftists. About 60,000 Macedonians fled, including 28,000 children, across the border to Yugoslavia, the Republic of Macedonia and the new People’s Republic of Bulgaria. Others went as far as Australia, Canada and the US. A 1982 law allowed war refugees to return to Greece, but only the ethnic Greeks.